oh no. help!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vadim]

my water has turned almost black because of the carbon. i guess huge water change is in store for me.

[BowieReefer84]

did you rinse the carbon to get rid of the dust before placing in your tank????

[trockafella]

did you rinse the carbon to get rid of the dust before placing in your tank????

 

 

BIG +1...?

 

I would also put a nice filter (poly filter) pad in there too on topof the water change..

Edited September 16, 2010 by trockafella

[Chad]

I would also place some sort of mechanical filtration in operation as well... if you have a diatom filter or power filter, they work well for this purpose.

 

Other than short-term irritation, I dont see a huge issue, the dust will settle out.

 

 

[Vadim]

yes, this carbon was used for a little before probably for a week before. before placing it in play again i rinsed it.

[Jon Lazar]

In addition to rinsing my carbon before filling the reactor, I also hang the reactor (TLF) on a 5g bucket of tankwater and let it run a day or so to make sure there are no problems like this.

 

 

yes, this carbon was used for a little before probably for a week before. before placing it in play again i rinsed it.

[BowieReefer84]

What brand carbon? Just wondering . . .

[Vadim]

Jon definitely something i'll be doing from now on.

Bowie i believe it was a marineland brand i bought. been awhile since i bought it. don't have the bottle anymore.

[Vadim]

would anyone recommend a particular brand of carbon?

[hypertech]

I've been pretty happy with the stuff from BRS.

[davelin315]

If you fluidize it, it can break up. The stuff that is squeezed out into granules is supposed to take tumbling better.

 

Watch out, there are many anecdotal stories, my own included, of carbon dust causing HLLE/Hole in the Head/Lateral Line Disease. I'd mechanically remove the dust and stir up your tank, it'll settle on everything and leave a layer of silt on and inside everything. If you have a sand bed, I'd vacuum the top layer off, if it's settled into the rock, you may even want to remove each piece and rinse it out or shake it in buckets when you do water changes.

 

Contrary to what others have said, I think there's a lot of potential for harm here. This is just based on my own personal experiences. Carbon theoretically shouldn't be a problem, but the dust itself can be a huge irritant. Also, I would use just regular filter floss - the polyfilter is more for removal of dissolved things in the water.

[Vadim]

so i did 15 gallons of water change. it helped but not to my satisfaction atleast. i've also scrubbed the glass on the inside before hand. patience running low.

[epleeds]

do you have a filter sock? run a siphon from your tank into the sump with the filter sock at the end of the hose, just let it run and try to get some of the carbon out of the water. that way the level never changes and hopefully the sock with pull out the particulates..

[Vadim]

Eric- yeah great minds think alike. I placed a sock filter inside the main tank where the pipe is coming from the sump. After all i've done today. Finally things are looking up a bit.

water is getting clearer. I still see dirty rocks and some places on the sand is dirty, But i'll give my fish some rest and wait till tomorrow to deal with the rocks and sand. Right now

all fish are active and corals are open, my salinity is down a bit, actually way down for my liking but i'll deal with that as the day goes on. so this is just another thing to learn from.

hopefully other people will read this and won't have to go through this mess.